If you are not quite ready for the switch to the XFCE window manager (instead of openbox) then you could try ComptonI am quite impressed with compton as a composite manager (works well with openbox+razor-qt on Arch)It is a fork from xcompmgr-dana (which is a fork istelf from xcompmgr).See here for LubuntuPPA for *buntu 12.10: https://launchpad.net/~richardgv/+archive/comptonor look here

Dunno if it's just me, but I don't seem to be able to get the drop shadow effect with xcompmgr or compton in Peppermint 3(BTW, that PPA also contains a version of compton for 12.04 .. which is what Peppermint 3 is based on)

Dunno..I am running with compton -c and it has shadows.Also just for try installed on netbook which is openbox+LXDE+Arch and just works.So decided to leave it on and put @compton -c into /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

OK, I was obviously trying to be too clever .. that works (drop shadows)

However ..

When I fire up cairo-dock .. I now get a gradiated shadow effect across the bottom (inch or so) of my screen .. I don't get that with xfwm4

It's as if the black box you get without compositing, is now a gradiated semi-transparent shadow .. if you get my meaning (?)

Pity, because it would be nice to have the keyboard shortcuts back .. I can probably easily solve these keyboard shortcuts, I just need to take a looksee at default Xfce4 configs .. one day I may even get round to that

To tell the truth I quite like the configurability of xfwm4 .. but can see compton is probably lighter, and it would certainly be an easier fix if it weren't for that weird shadow effect at the bottom of screen.

and just for completenessxcompmgr -cdoesn't give me drop shadows at all .. go figure

OK, an easier way of adding compositing and drop shadows (which won't break keyboard shortcuts) ..(be aware this will NOT give you Win7 style window snapping .. for that you'll have to use the xfwm4 instructions above)

I followed SeZos method and it works perfectly thank you both, but you're not off the hook yet, as I mentioned on my first post I tried using Cairo Dock on my Grand-daughters PC but it's slow and sluggish by comparison to this PC, is there any things I can try to speed up the Cairo Dock effects or would i be wasting my time trying

EDIT Spoke too soon it did work perfectly until I tried different views, I tried parabolic and now I can't do anything, right click no longer gets me back to the configuration window, no apps will launch and I now have this horrible dock slached across my screen I can do nothing with. I tried uninstalling and re-installing but iwhen I re-installed it defaulted back to parabolic and back to square one ,I assume there must be a config file somewhere I can edit to turn off parabolic, any ideas ?

Many thanks

Graeme

« Last Edit: February 03, 2013, 09:48:40 am by Emegra »

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If your daughters PC is struggling with cairo-dock with its default settings, I'd guess her PC just aint up to iit .. have you tried the "cairo-dock (no OpenGL)" instead ?

I tried it in with no Open GL and that made a huge difference some effects are missing but that's ok, the problem now is that I can't get it to stop starting up with Open GL, I unchecked Cairo Dock (with Open GL) in the desktop sessions dialogue box but it still starts up with Open GL regardless and I can see nothing in the Cairo Dock configuration to change to no Open GL, this seems to be a problem with many things in Linux I've discovered , it just doesn't do what it says it will do or not do whatever is the case, in spite of unchecking the box to stop Cairo Dock opening at startup it still does it and in synaptic in spite of selecting "mark for complete removal" it obviously doesn't completely remove it, maybe it's just me.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant but I just get frustrated when I have to come on here seeking help to do what should be simple things

Anyway can you tell me please how I can get Cairo Dock to startup with no Open GL

Many thanks

Graeme

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If you can keep your head while all around are losing theirs, then you're not quite grasping the situation